If, like me, you immerse yourself deeply in philosophical literature, this may cause you to draw certain conclusions out of extending the logical structure of the paradigm. But then you forget why and how you did it. That is what became my fate.
I wondered why I stated so emphatically that the height of achievement regarding shamanic initiation was "to see oneself from the outside". But now it all makes sense. Once you have solved all your problems from the inside, from within the womb of subjectivity, you have no choice but to see yourself from the outside, as if you had become a problem solved and capable of being observed.
But that also implies a facing of death and of one's limits. One was bound by the political and psychological dynamics (really the same thing from different angles) of the time. But now one understands those, one is no longer affected by them, at least not from the point of view of subjectivity. To put it differently, one is no longer IMMERSED in them. One sees these dynamics from the outside, and thus one sees oneself, as one had been, from the outside. That is transcendence of the limited mode of consciousness one had been in.
People who see subjectivity and objectivity as POLAR opposites, rather than dialectic (that is, intertwining) opposites, will not understand why one has to first immerse oneself into subjectivity in order to become fully objective. Nonetheless, those who would take a short-cut by immediately proclaiming their own objectivity about matters relating to their selves will remain, paradoxically as it may seem, immersed in subjectivity.
When somebody is deeply contained by their own subjectivity, they do not differentiate their perceptions from common sense. Whatever they perceive, they hold to be reflective of reality itself. Indeed, even the word "reflective" gives them too much credit. If they emote something, that becomes a perception -- the perception is deemed to be the same as reality.
One must separate what pertains to oneself and what pertains to others. Otherwise one is not worthy of intellectual debate. In effect, one must "see oneself from the outside", having made sense of all the subjective dynamics that had captivated one's mind. Only then will one see how entrapped others remain to their subjective dynamics.
But to see everything in this way implies accepting a certain amount of death into one's being -- a closing off of the subjective access to the past. One sees oneself from the outside in the same way that the spirit does when it is leaving the body, figuratively speaking.
I wondered why I stated so emphatically that the height of achievement regarding shamanic initiation was "to see oneself from the outside". But now it all makes sense. Once you have solved all your problems from the inside, from within the womb of subjectivity, you have no choice but to see yourself from the outside, as if you had become a problem solved and capable of being observed.
But that also implies a facing of death and of one's limits. One was bound by the political and psychological dynamics (really the same thing from different angles) of the time. But now one understands those, one is no longer affected by them, at least not from the point of view of subjectivity. To put it differently, one is no longer IMMERSED in them. One sees these dynamics from the outside, and thus one sees oneself, as one had been, from the outside. That is transcendence of the limited mode of consciousness one had been in.
People who see subjectivity and objectivity as POLAR opposites, rather than dialectic (that is, intertwining) opposites, will not understand why one has to first immerse oneself into subjectivity in order to become fully objective. Nonetheless, those who would take a short-cut by immediately proclaiming their own objectivity about matters relating to their selves will remain, paradoxically as it may seem, immersed in subjectivity.
When somebody is deeply contained by their own subjectivity, they do not differentiate their perceptions from common sense. Whatever they perceive, they hold to be reflective of reality itself. Indeed, even the word "reflective" gives them too much credit. If they emote something, that becomes a perception -- the perception is deemed to be the same as reality.
One must separate what pertains to oneself and what pertains to others. Otherwise one is not worthy of intellectual debate. In effect, one must "see oneself from the outside", having made sense of all the subjective dynamics that had captivated one's mind. Only then will one see how entrapped others remain to their subjective dynamics.
But to see everything in this way implies accepting a certain amount of death into one's being -- a closing off of the subjective access to the past. One sees oneself from the outside in the same way that the spirit does when it is leaving the body, figuratively speaking.
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